The Malibu Library Has $25 Million, and No Idea How to Spend It
High property taxes has made the Malibu Library surprisingly profligate, if unsure what to do about it.
Holly Bieler · September 8, 2026 · Malibu
The Malibu Library has a problem most libraries would envy. It has too much money, and the city can't seem to spend it.
Like most small cities in the county, Malibu doesn't run its own library. Its branch is operated by L.A. County Library, which is paid for by property taxes: [about 2.5 cents](https://www.smdp.com/malibu-council-rejects-county-library-plan-demands-world-class-facility/) of every property tax dollar collected in Malibu goes to the county library. In the 49 cities the county system serves, that money normally lands in one countywide budget, and nobody keeps score of whether a town's taxes cover its own branch.
Except in Malibu.
Under a [2008 agreement](https://smdp.com/2019/03/23/malibu-city-council-approves-funds-to-enhance-library-services/) between the city and the county, the county keeps a running tally for Malibu. Every year it adds up the library tax collected from Malibu properties, subtracts what it costs to run the Civic Center Way branch, and banks the difference in a fund that the city can only spent only on the Malibu Library. Because Malibu's property values are so high, the difference is large, and it has been piling up for 18 years.
The fund held [about $25 million](https://www.smdp.com/malibu-council-rejects-county-library-plan-demands-world-class-facility/) as of December, and grows by about $3.1 million a year.
That money has made projects possible that other libraries only dream of. It paid for the branch's $6 million renovation in 2012, as well as the city’s poet laureate, library supplies for Malibu's public schools, and three full-time security guards.
But managing and spending that money has turned into its own arduous job. The city has been consistently late in submitting library budgets, and they often fall far short of what the city’s taking in. In the 2023-24 fiscal year it approved $1.43 million in library programs and spent only $747,118, after taking in a little more than $3.5 million.
The Malibu City Council, which sets the library’s budget along with two library officials, has begun to think more creatively about spending that fund in recent years. The 2027 budget, released last week, nearly six months late, includes handing over cash to local nonprofits, which one library staffer acknowledged was “a new and evolving aspect of the fund.”
The budget includes funding for a yearlong fire preparedness series with the Boys & Girls Club of Malibu, money to the Malibu Film Society, and an $81,200 environmental education program from the Malibu Monarch Project.
Not everything made the final cut, however. A county proposal to add a psychiatric social worker to the Malibu Library was dropped from the final budget.